


Location: Remote

by Schrodingers_Rufus



Series: Location: Remote [1]
Category: Half-Life
Genre: Alternate Universe, Clones, Gen, Remote-Controlled Gordon Freeman, Suicide mention, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-18 20:26:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28998234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schrodingers_Rufus/pseuds/Schrodingers_Rufus
Summary: Based on an Alternate Freeman idea posted by ArdeaWrites (ardeawritten) on Tumblr:"The Freeman sent back to earth is a clone. Every time Freeman dies in-game, that’s another clone body. The original is controlling them from stasis, experiencing every death, do-over and retry."
Relationships: Barney Calhoun & Gordon Freeman, Gordon Freeman & Alyx Vance
Series: Location: Remote [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2203434
Comments: 10
Kudos: 48





	Location: Remote

**Author's Note:**

> Wherein Gordon Freeman is not a fan of working remotely.

This was a mistake. This was a _mistake,_ and not the kind he could get a do-over on unless he took a flying leap over the railing in Silo 2 and snapped his own neck.

Not worth it.

He had to tell somebody, though, and for some godforsaken reason he picked the two who’d probably take it the worst. No, he could imagine worse, but he could _absolutely_ imagine better. 

He should have pulled Kleiner aside first--hell, he should have pulled Kleiner aside back in City 17, back when he woke up, blinking, from a spray of Combine bullets buried into his leg, his back, his skull. Before the teleport, before _everything,_ he should have told Kleiner. Kleiner would have understood the fascination mixed in with the terror. 

But Kleiner wasn’t here right now. Neither was Dr. Vance, the man who’d pulled him aside and mentioned their _mutual friend._

Instead, he’d grabbed Alyx--not a bad choice, honestly. She was smart, trustworthy, and had grown up with worse than he’d seen back at Black Mesa. She could handle it. 

It was Barney he was worried about. 

He still couldn’t quite figure out what compelled him to drag Barney out of the mess hall, his hands fumbling through something approximating, “Something I should’ve told you before.” He didn’t know what to say back then, and he still didn’t. 

It was familiarity, maybe. He and Barney had stayed up late before, hopped up on coffee and Mountain Dew and--one memorable time--a six-pack of BAWLS that Gordon had smuggled into the facility. They’d talked about things that didn’t make sense. Barney brought up wild tales and conspiracy theories while Gordon tried to rationalize them; Gordon rambled about bizarre hypotheses that nobody had fully shot down yet and Barney chucked empty cans against Gordon’s head.

That was probably it. Barney was his _weird shit_ guy.

Unfortunately, spending between one and twenty years (depending on what day you asked) as the rebellion’s mole within the Combine leaves a guy with a bit of a paranoid streak, and that was _after_ working the Blue Shift. If anybody was going to freak out and throw Gordon in whatever passes for a containment cell in White Forest, it would be Barney.

What the hell was he doing?  
  
_What the hell was he doing?_

“Uh, Gordon?” Alyx quirked an eyebrow, leaning back further into the couch. “You still with us?”

“Earth to Freeman. Come in, Freeman,” Barney sniped, but it was missing some of his usual edge. 

“Yeah, I’m...” Gordon trailed off, trying to steady his hands. He dug at a hole in the moth-eaten chair he’d dragged opposite the couch before continuing. “I’m listening.”

“Hope you didn’t call us all the way in here at two in the morning just to listen to _us_.” There were dark shadows under Barney’s eyes even now, a week after he and the other rebels got in. Gordon couldn’t blame him. Takes longer than a week to make up for what he’s seen. 

Alyx elbowed Barney in the ribs. 

“No, I...” Gordon took a long, slow breath in. He couldn’t put this off forever. “There’s something I wanted to tell you. Or tell everybody, honestly, but you two first.”

Alyx’s brow furrowed, but she let him continue.  
  
“I should have told you sooner, but I...” _Come on, Freeman. You’re still not past the hard part._ “I didn’t understand it. I still don’t, but I can’t keep putting it off.”

“And what...” Alyx started, tentative. “...exactly is ‘it’?”

Deep breath.  
  
Gordon screwed his eyes shut, pulled his hands up to scrub at them beneath his glasses. He’d deal with the smudges later, now that he’s got a real, honest-to-god shirt on.

“The man you’re looking at right now isn’t Gordon Freeman.”

Across the way, Barney tensed. Even with his eyes shut, Gordon could hear it in the way Barney’s boots scraped against the concrete, in the shifting of fabric. “Then who the hell are you?”  
  
Gordon felt himself wince. “I’m...It’s complicated.” He forced his eyes open, forced himself to watch their faces. “ _I’m_ me. I mean, _I’m_ Gordon Freeman.”  
  
Gordon watched the gears turning in their heads, watched their expressions shift in different directions. Alyx’s brow furrowed deeper, eyes focused on nothing. He watched her fingers drum against her leg the way they did when she charted a path up the side of a building. Barney kept his eyes locked on Gordon, his stare wary and intense, but Gordon could tell his gaze was on his left shoulder, rather than forcing eye contact. Old habits die hard, Gordon guessed, even after two decades. He could at least be thankful for that.  
  
Alyx looked up, face still guarded. “So _you_...the guy who’s talking...aren’t the guy we’re looking at.”  
  
_Thank you. Thank. You. Alyx Vance_. He hadn’t been looking forward to trying to put this into words, but he’d barely needed to say anything before she started putting it all together herself. “Yeah. Sort of.”

“That’s one hell of a ‘sort of’.” Barney leaned back, arms crossed.  
  
“So, lemme make sure I’ve got this clear.” Alyx sat up straighter. “You’re Gordon Freeman. But your body...isn’t?”  
  
“Nah, that’s Gordon’s body alright,” Barney cut in. 

Again, Gordon winced. He shot Barney a glance and then shook his head. “No, she’s right. This--” He tapped his chest. “--isn’t the Gordon you knew.”

Alyx stood up, stepping closer. It took more willpower than Gordon would care to admit to keep himself from recoiling. “But this...” She tapped his head. “...is, huh?”

“Well...” Gordon looked up, shrugging. He tapped at his head, matching the spot she touched. “That’s also not me. This whole...thing, the...” He gestured from his head to his feet. “The stuff you’re looking at, the stuff inside that. All of it isn’t me.”

Barney somehow managed to look even more fed up. “Then _what is it?_ ”  
  
“Decoy,” Gordon signed, short and clipped. “Kind of. At least that’s what I’ve been calling them. That and, uh, ‘meatsuit.’ They can bleed, for sure, and they can...well.”

Slow, horrified realization dawned on Barney’s face. “And they can die, is what you’re saying.”

Hesitantly, Gordon nodded. “And they can die.”  
  
Barney leaned forward, elbows on his knees, voice low. “And they _have_ died, is what you’re saying.”

Again, Gordon nodded. 

“God,” Alyx mumbled, the pity clear in her voice. For once, he didn’t try to shrug it off; he just met her eyes for a second and nodded again, harder.

Slowly, blinking to clear away the sting, he looked over at Barney, braced himself for Officer Calhoun to surge forward, to knock him in the jaw so hard he saw spots, to wrestle him into a hold for the safety of White Forest. He’s not wearing the suit; Barney could probably pull it off. 

There was no collision, no pain. 

Just Barney’s hollow, horrified stare. 

“Gordon, _what the hell did they do to you?_ ”

He couldn’t keep looking. Gordon’s gaze hit the ground, his molars gnawing into his cheek like they were making up for something.  
  
“I don’t know.” His hands shook; he couldn’t stop it. “I don’t know. But I prom--” He fumbled the sign. “I promise. I promise. I _promise_ you it’s not Combine. _I’m_ not Combine.”

There was a hand on his arm. He leaned into it, and it traveled up to his shoulder and squeezed. _Thank you, Alyx Vance._

“My mind’s still mine.” A shaky laugh--nearly inaudible, as always--whistled through his useless larynx. “Even if my head isn’t.”

Barney let out a snort, though the tension didn’t leave his posture. “You’re saying it’s not the Combine’s, but can you tell us whose it is?”  
  
Breathe. 

“I don’t know for sure.” And doesn’t that sting? “But he talked to me, here and there. Said I was--” Gordon forced his expression into something blank, something unnatural. He stiffened his hands, moving with an uneven rhythm. “-- _too val-u-able to be used without certain...precautions_.”

Something like recognition flashed behind Alyx’s eyes. “What...kind of precautions?”

Gordon dropped the impression, shifting back to his usual posture. “I think he’s keeping my real body somewhere. I’ve been able to see, sometimes, between…” A shiver ran down his spine. “When they’ve had to replace the decoy.”

When he had the presence of mind to look down in those brief, rare moments, he barely got more than a fleeting impression. Darkness, cut through with unnatural blue-green light like a monitor screen. Pale skin, raised with goosebumps, pockmarked with scars. Rows of dark tubes, buried beneath the skin.  
  
And then he was blinking, breathing filthy air into fresh, new lungs under a hazy sky.  
  
Once they gave him a room in White Forest, once he could finally pry himself out of his shell and yank the needles out of his arms, at least for a day or two, he looked down at his skin. Every scar, recreated. Every freckle and birthmark, where it should be. 

“He’s got me hooked up to something,” Gordon signed. “So I can control them remotely. Haven’t gotten a good enough look yet.”  
  
Yet. 

The right arm of the chair creaked, a new weight on his opposite side. Another hand settled onto his back, callused and heavy.  
  
“We’ll get you back, Gordon.” Barney’s voice was low, crackling at the edges. “Just you wait.”

“All of us versus one of him.” Gordon could hear the smile tugging at Alyx’s lips, even without looking up. “Sounds like pretty good odds to me.”


End file.
